[HN Gopher] Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitl...
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Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitler's Atlantic
Wall
Author : rmason
Score : 68 points
Date : 2025-06-05 02:21 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| the__alchemist wrote:
| _Panjandrum_ : Fraa Orolo's pejorative term for a high-ranking
| official of the Saecular Power.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Stephenson enjoys the word. He also used it in _Cryptonomicon_.
| I keep a running list of new words I encounter and share them
| online occasionally. Someone once recognized I was reading
| _Cryptonomicon_ just from a string of those new words, lol.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| If you enjoy encountering new words and phrases such as
| 'theurgic vermin' then you might like China Mieville's
| _Kraken_. I had to read it with a copy of the OED and
| Wikipedia to get the most from it.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I had a pretty good list for Polostan
| ben_ja_min wrote:
| Thank you for this. I was going nuts trying to figure out where
| I had read this before. Peace and love! For the uninitiated,
| the Neil Stephenson novel, "Anathem", is brilliant and
| extremely entertaining.
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| And if you enjoyed that you'd possibly enjoy The Glass Bead
| Game
| daverol wrote:
| I always preferred the thinking behind the 'Conundrum' used in
| Operation Pluto. No big bangs but excellent logistics - see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pluto
| KineticLensman wrote:
| There's a recreation of a Panjandrum in the iconic UK WW2-set
| comedy 'Dad's Army' [0] which captures the essential nuttiness of
| the real device
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_and_Round_Went_the_Great...
| kjellsbells wrote:
| As the ww2 generation passes on, it's easy to forget the degree
| of utter, total mobilization that went on in the British Isles
| during the war. I'm always struck by how easy it is to hike into
| some remote part of the UK and learn that the parish school was a
| training ground for Italian resistance fighters or that some park
| in remote scotland was where they trained commandos. Perhaps its
| because the country is quite small, and they had to use every
| inch, but it always seems remarkable.
|
| I think the notion of odd, but brilliant, boffin is deeply
| embedded in British culture. Or was, until at least the 2000s.
| The Great Egg Race on TV being a fine example.
| nocoiner wrote:
| You would probably enjoy the book "Backroom Boys" by Francis
| Spufford.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| What i find even more remarkable is how every town, village,
| school and institution have memorials for those who lost their
| lives in the Great War. Usually there is another plaque
| attached in memory of WW2. It's hard to imagine the scale of
| deaths. The tragedy is how little was accomplished by the
| sacrifices of ww1. It had none of the moral clarity of ww2 nor
| did most of the deaths achieve any strategic purpose.
|
| On the other hand i knew an old scientist who had quite a few
| interesting and amusing stories to share about his efforts in
| WW2. One of them was about his attempts to perfect a formala.
| Several factories exploded before they succeeded.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| It's worth pointing out explicitly that WW2 didn't have the
| moral clarity that it does today either. The vast majority of
| the western world was perfectly content to let Hitler run
| Europe and Japan to run Asia.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| What do you define as the vast majority of the western
| world? Just the US?
| jltsiren wrote:
| There was moral clarity in West and South Europe. But if you
| happened to be in East Europe, WW2 was primarily a war
| between nazism and communism. Everyone else was trying to
| find the least bad option, which usually meant choosing a
| side and switching it at least once.
| closewith wrote:
| > British Isles
|
| Britain and occupied Northern Ireland.
|
| > I'm always struck by how easy it is to hike into some remote
| part of the UK and learn that the parish school was a training
| ground for Italian resistance fighters or that some park in
| remote scotland was where they trained commandos.
|
| You're more likely to find a memorial to a historical genocidal
| tyrant or crime against humanity in Britain than anything worth
| celebrating. Britain helped fight a greater evil in the Nazis
| during the Second World War, but make no mistake - they were
| the lesser evil, not anything to be admired or vaunted.
| codeduck wrote:
| Good Lord, how can you function with that massive chip on
| your shoulder?
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Most of the globe seems to function just fine.
| cperciva wrote:
| No nation is exclusively good, but I would challenge you to
| name a nation which did both more good and less evil.
| closewith wrote:
| Than the United Kingdom? The obvious answer in line with my
| comment is Ireland.
| cperciva wrote:
| I won't argue with the statement that Ireland did less
| evil than the UK.
|
| I'm unclear how you can justify claiming that Ireland did
| more good than the UK.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| You'd have to articulate how you see the UK doing good to
| furnish a comparable example.
| cperciva wrote:
| Defeating Nazi Germany is a good start?
| arandomusername wrote:
| By siding with the USSR, and letting them take control
| over eastern Europe? The USSR was just as bad as Nazi
| Germany.
| cperciva wrote:
| Fair enough, but I'd say that _half_ of Europe being free
| is better than _none_ of Europe being free. I don 't
| think there's much the UK could have done to help Eastern
| Europe.
| hollerith wrote:
| The Europeans invented modern science and technology,
| with England contributing the most (particularly during
| the 19th Century).
|
| Maybe most nations of the world would've followed a
| course of colonization and empire if they had been as
| dominant in wealth, technology and organizational ability
| as England was.
| xg15 wrote:
| I mean, they did supply a substantial part of the world's
| independence days...
| thih9 wrote:
| With its own wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/List_of_countries_that_have_...
| cperciva wrote:
| And most of those were voluntary, not armed rebellions.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I mean, you might be able to make some kind of argument
| about the good outdoing the evil (I think it would be hard,
| but hey, I won't call a line of argument impossible until I
| see it happen). But, the idea that it would be challenging
| to name a country that did less evil than GB is pretty
| ridiculous, right?
|
| Most countries didn't have colonial empires, so GB is
| pretty high up there (arguably not at the top) in the evil
| rankings.
| cperciva wrote:
| Sure. The UK has done a lot, both Good and Evil. There
| are lots of countries which have done less Evil than the
| UK. There are some countries which have done more Good
| than the UK. I can't think of any country which is on
| both lists.
| arandomusername wrote:
| Having a colonial empire isn't evil. GB also ended
| slavery in the western world.
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's the same old theme since 1916
|
| In your head, in your head, they're still fighting
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts
| weakfish wrote:
| Hear hear, most of the world is content to forget the
| atrocities committed by the UK in the occupied north of
| Ireland
| twixfel wrote:
| Most atrocities are forgotten. I go most days without
| thinking about the atrocities committed by anyone. Except
| maybe currently Russia.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Various infantry bunkers laying about are also a reminder, but
| what really gets me are the bonkers last-ditch defensive
| weapons you can still find in places, like preset positions for
| flame fougasse batteries:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_fougasse
|
| They speak to the particular combination of desperation,
| urgency, and ingenuity found in the UK at that time.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > As the ww2 generation passes on,
|
| I was at a picnic recently that happened to be on VE day, it
| really struck me that now London is only about 35% or so
| English as the ww2 generation would've known it, almost no one
| has a particularly good reason to bother paying attention. I'm
| sure I was the only person there who knows who Barnes Wallis
| was.
|
| And yes I miss the boffins. They do still sort of exist but
| that type of mind has been strangled by the last few decades
| drive towards left-brained processes where everything basically
| has to be nailed down before the work actually starts.
|
| That latter point is one reason why we're struggling so much -
| we owe a great debt to the generations who built all the
| infrastructure and housing. We didn't pay it off, we now can't
| really do anything at scale other than extract rent. The
| victorians were building a HS2 every few years.
| arandomusername wrote:
| > it really struck me that now London is only about 35% or so
| English
|
| That's absolutely crazy. If you told this to a Brit during
| ww2, they would think they lost.
| mhh__ wrote:
| congratulations, you're a terrorist
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-
| over...
| elephant81 wrote:
| https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-
| confluence?utm_medium=ios Tyler Cowen posted this last
| week, I was completely shocked by it. Worth reading on the
| state of the UK in general.
| icameron wrote:
| There's good footage of actual tests about 40 seconds into this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJQqXXENYsI
| sevensor wrote:
| Nevil Shute is worth a read. Best known for _On The Beach_ ,
| probably, but I enjoyed _Round the Bend_ more.
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